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mmmarlowe
Grape Picker
Posts:7
 | | 02/01/2008 1:37 PM |
| | I've been a lurker for while and appreciate all the posts on VC because I can cull a bit of the overall knowledge of this Board. Thanks to all. Anyway, I have an older Vinotemp wine cellar with storage for about 180 bottles. The Vinotemp is exactly the perfect size to fit into an alcove that I have in my living room where a standing stove used to be. The alcove is shallow (about 24" deep) so the Vinotemp fits perfectly because it was built for single-depth bottle storage...it almost looks like the alcove was built for the unit. Unfortunately, the wine racks which are metal and redwood were made for standard 750 ml storage. I think Dave used to have a Vinotemp. Anyway, for some bottles, the fit is so tight that the labels are scraped when taking in or out. I used to drink more Cabs so the Vinotemp worked fine for me. But many Pinot bottles (KB, Ketcham, others) only fit along the sides and the top. The new releases are coming out and I'm out of room. I thought of tearing out the existing racking and replacing it with new racking (or of tearing out the top half of the existing racking and replacing it with racking with larger slots) but another alternative would be to buy a smaller unit to be placed in my garage to hold just pinot bottles that I might be holding for a few years. My garage is uninsulated and not attached to my house. I live in Walnut Creek in the SF Bay Area. In the summer, the temperatures will get into the 90's and 100's. Last year, it was my good fortune to host a bbq for about 30 people when the outside temperature was about 115. Standing over a gas grill in 115 temperatures was not condusive to happy thoughts. Anyway, I'm pretty sure the temperatures in my garage hovers around the same temperatures as the outside. In the Winter, the temperature in the garage probably goes down in the 40's. I'm not too sure that it is a bright idea to place a wine cooler in this type of environment. For one, the unit might have to work damned hard just to maintain proper temperatures. Secondly, it the power went out (as it did during last summer's heat wave when a transformer serving the area blew) and I wasn't around, the wine could get cooked. Any thoughts, experiences or ideas would be appreciated. Thanks. | | | |
| Seamus Campbell
Portland, Oregon
Grape Fermenter
Posts:401
| | 02/01/2008 2:00 PM |
| | Wine cooling units are typically rated for the temperature differential between the interior and ambient temps... 115 is a heck of a lot warmer than most are intended for. You can get some cooling units that are specifically for storage in warm ambient areas, but I wouldn't expect any of them to perform well in that kind of heat. | | | |
| Bradley Molzen
Bayonne, NJ
Wine Lover
Posts:4990
| | 02/01/2008 2:06 PM |
| Glad you made your first post mmmarlowe!
Sounds like you have all the bases covered.... in that you should probably NOT put a wine storage unit in your garage. My particular unit can only cool down to about a 25 or 30 degree difference from the outside air. So if I had 115 degree heat, my unit might be able to cool down to 85 degrees, and it'll strain, and run constantly trying to get down to 55.... so I can see that electric bill going through the roof quite quickly, not to mention how much shorter the cooling units duty cycle will get. It certainly can't warm the air in the unit either.
Do your due diligence and see what the operating range is for the different manufacturers, but I think you'll be hard pressed to find something suitable to that environment. | |
If you drink wine, you get smarter.... | |
| juggernt
Tampa, FL, USA
Wine Bottler
Posts:3420
| | 02/01/2008 2:16 PM |
| | Welcome to VC. Post early, post often! | |
Visit The Butcher Block at http://www.butcherblocktampa.com/ | |
| mmmarlowe
Grape Picker
Posts:7
| | 02/01/2008 2:33 PM |
| | Thanks for the responses. Thinking more about it, it seems an entirely unsound idea to place one in the garage. For the most part, Walnut Creek is in the 80's and 90's during summer. Even with these temperatures, it sounds as most units could not get down to 55 and would be cycling on and off almost continously. Well my alternate idea, is to try to place a very shallow unit in a standard linen or bedroom closet (1950's ranch house closet...not one of the mega-colossus size modern closets). Anything problem with this idea? | | | |
| Winetex
Austin, Texas
Master of Wine
Posts:10796
| | 02/01/2008 2:54 PM |
| Anything problem with this idea?
It should not be a problem as long as it has adequate room to vent. Welcome to VC. | | | |
| Edward Bowers
Palm Beach Gardens
Barrel Sampler
Posts:2072
| | 02/02/2008 9:53 AM |
| I have two wine coolers in the garage. Also each has a thermometer that I check weekly. The garage is not A/C, and the nose of the car is within 20" of the coolers, and does give off heat when I park the car. Have checked the temperature when I first installed the coolers there, and found that i still maintain the temperature within a degree. | | | |
| Randy Wigginton
Wine Connoisseur
Posts:5510
| | 02/02/2008 10:06 AM |
| Speaking from experience, you won't have a problem with this setup. It will cost a heck of a lot in electricity. You'd be best served by
1) insulating the garage
2) adding a moderate a/c unit to the garage
these are in addition to what you are doing. The reason is that the coolers vent internally; thus, the longer the coolers run, the higher the ambient air temperature. The higher ambient air temperature not only makes the coolers work harder, but they tend to warm up the wine cooler box even through the insulation.
The other alternative is to vent external (which is what I ended up doing). This makes things much easier.
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